Trump set to hold media event with Elon Musk at the White House

President Donald Trump is set to hold a media event with Elon Musk, a key architect of the Department of Government Efficiency, on Friday afternoon at the White House as the tech billionaire concludes his tenure as a “special government employee.”

Trump announced the event, scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET, on his social media site.

“This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Elon is terrific!”

NBC News reported that Musk’s monthslong stint as a special government employee tasked with slashing federal spending formally ended Wednesday evening. He has served the designated 130 days out of 365 in the year as a special government employee.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, announced his departure Wednesday on X, after he said he was “disappointed” by a domestic package Trump rallied House Republicans to get behind.

He told “CBS Sunday Morning” in an interview set to air Sunday, “I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”

The tech billionaire also disagreed with Trump’s imposition of sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners last month, pointing to the trade relationship with Europe as one where he would like to see a “zero-tariff situation.“

Musk thanked Trump in his post Wednesday, adding that DOGE’s “mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

Musk, who in January walked back a vision of cutting upward of $2 trillion with his department, has argued that bureaucracy has throttled his efforts to reduce government spending.

“The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized,” he told The Washington Post this week. “I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.”

House Republicans voted last week to approve the legislation that would extend Trump’s tax cuts from his first term, which is estimated to add $2.3 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years and cancel health coverage for roughly 8.6 million people, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.